The Belgian No.1, who faced Barcelona star Messi last season while on loan at Spanish champions Atletico Madrid, said: “The good thing is that I don’t have to watch videos of him because I know him so well.

“But even if you watch videos of him, he’s so unpredictable that it’s impossible to study him to know what he’s going to do.

“As soon as he finds a way to shoot, he will shoot, so the only thing you can do as a goalkeeper is concentrate at all times.

“You can’t think of anything else for one second because at that moment he will score.

“I know him well from Atletico’s games against Barcelona, so it’ll be nice to play against him for our countries. Hopefully we can win, but we’ll see.”

Courtois came out on top against Messi over the course of last season but knows that the Argentinian No.10 will be determined to emulate Diego Maradona’s brilliance in 1986 when they beat Belgium on the way to winning the World Cup.

This time Belgium have a new young generation of talent coming through and Courtois believes Argentina will provide them with the ultimate test.

Courtois said: “Winning the World Cup would be great but we have to go step by step and the next step is Argentina.

“It’s going to be really hard to beat them. So let’s try to beat them first and then see what happens in the future. But it’s going to be tough to get by Argentina.

“It’s a World Cup; it’s always hard. Against America, it was very difficult. But we stayed strong and managed to win. We must stay strong and together.”

Belgium hope to be boosted by the return of fit-again Arsenal captain Thomas Vermaelen who insists he should be ready to face Argentina after a hamstring problem.

It could all be about Belgium stopping Argentina’s forwards but Zenit St Petersburg midfield hardman Axel Witsel believes the Argentinians should be frightened of Belgium as well.

But Witsel admits it will take a “miracle” if Belgium are to beat the odds and go on to win the World Cup.

Witsel added: “Our goal was to reach the quarter-finals. Now we are here, we can enjoy the next game, which is a bonus for us.